PlzGivHugs

@PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there another term for crafted, interactive activities besides games/video games?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  “Interactive experiences” as pretentious as it sounds, seems to be the the matching general term. Asside from that, simulation, educator, or something like, “interactive video” might apply.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the point of the "Airport Security" (aka: TSA) in the USA? Does the "Airport Security" ever actually scare away potential terrorists?⁩ ⁨⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  You can test the catch rate of illegal or dangerous materials, but this is a measure more of the chance of catching someone once an attack is already in progress. Basically, it just measures if its security theatre or not. To know if its effective at preventing attacks, we’d also need to know the number who wanted to attack and decided against it because TSA existed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the point of the "Airport Security" (aka: TSA) in the USA? Does the "Airport Security" ever actually scare away potential terrorists?⁩ ⁨⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Does this “Security Theater” actually scare away a would-be terrorist?

  Basically, we can’t answer this because it’d require measuring how many events didn’t happen. I suspect it only really helps reduce improvised, spur-of-the-moment crimes, but then again, the sort of person who would highjack a passenger plan is usually pretty stupid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam News - Your 2024 Steam Replay is here⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not really sure whether to be proud or ashamed - esspecially considering my title card indicates all my stats have decreased.

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some keto meals that are easy to make in bulk? Bonus points for stuff that can be frozen.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the advice.

  For the time being, we’re trying to transition very gently into keto. It’ll probably be multiple months before we’re trying to maintain a “real” keto diet, so hopefully that will help the side effects or at last provide time to intervene before they become too serious. Worst case, we can stop at whatever point is healthy for us, but we’ll still need recipies to maintain even that compared to our current “rice or potatoes with every meal” diet.

• What are some keto meals that are easy to make in bulk? Bonus points for stuff that can be frozen.
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩ | ⁨21⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three Chairs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  True, although at the same time, even most of the general AIs are quite good at it. I’ve tinkered with it a lot, and AIs are an amost perfect blend of knowledge of the aethetics of common human spaces, and a complete lack of consideration of their function or design. Things like misaligned geometry, dark corners, and impractical layouts are all common and all fit the tone of Liminal/Uncanny imagery perfectly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three Chairs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  For all my concerns and distain about AI generated images, they are exceptionally good at creating uncanny, liminal, and dreamlike images.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Winner"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The vast majority of those machines are very rigged. I’m guessing that machine was set to just never pay out the large prize.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Orban Says Zelensky Rejected Proposal for a Christmas Truce - News From Antiwar.com⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Russia breaks agreements whenever they’re inconvenient. I don’t see why they would expect this time to be any different.

• Is there anything Lemmy has more/better content for than Reddit and other mainstream sites?
  Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩ | ⁨53⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For those trying to cope in these trying times⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  But its not even Wednesday?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are kings almost always redheads?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I can’t say I’ve noticed this, but depending on the design, it might just be about ensuring contrast of different elements. Red contrasts a yellow crown and beige skin pretty well whereas blonde hair would might blend with skin and crown, brown isn’t as bad but isn’t great. Black works, but can be hard to do with any detail in a minimalist style or one using black outlines. This leaves, red, and grey.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its unfortunately a pretty common thing, esspecially for gatcha games. Look at the whole Limbus Company debacle from a few years back, for example, where people protested outside the studio because the summer skins weren’t sexy enough (for a game that hadn’t previously sexualized characters heavily) and got an unrelated artist fired because she was a feminist and thus was surely the one who made the decision.

  With gatcha games, its a bit of a perfect storm with the extreme investment expected in these games, the monitization of characters, an industry that leans into this, and the fact that these games tend to be made in and marketed towards east-Asian regions where generally, sexuality is more accepted but sexism also more common.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its possible I’ve just been lucky enough to avoid that part of the playerbase. Then again, my perception my also be skewed from spending so much time in Dead By Daylight, War Thunder, Minecraft and Counter Strike. At least in Dota, it takes some effort to kill more than a couple teammates.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, by online gaming standards, I’ve found Dota pretty tame. Prehaps its just because I stick to more casual modes and have a high behaviour score, but I rarely see much more than a “GGEZ” at the end of a game, or players tipping mistakes. I think its been at least a month since the last time I saw someone hack, intentionally teamkill, or throw. Obviously, its still a competitve online game (toxicity isn’t rare), but the only other online game I can think of where I experienced less toxicity was Deep Rock Galactic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would there be any merit in the idea of NATO waging a "benevolent war" (for lack of a better term) against Ukraine?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It could be done, but it could even more easily be done to just say Ukrane is part of NATO, and NATO will intervene if necessary to prevent further territory loss. The result would be the same. Putin doesn’t care about the theatrics. He just wants the Ukrainian identity destroyed and the land to be considered Russian.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Half-Life 2 is currently 100% for its 20th anniversary⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, they implemented some graphical improvements and options, as well as workshop mod support so now would be a good time for a replay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How far away are we from someone using AI to create an animated TV show by themselves.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Technically, it can and has been done already. The problem is that AI is very bad at creating new ideas and even worse at understanding what it has created (as is required for plots or jokes). As a result, any writting created with heavy AI influence tends to sound like a child’s stream of thought with an adult’s vocabulary, and any jokes rely purely on randomness or on repeating an existing well-known joke. Similarly with art and animation, because the AI doesn’t understand what it is creating, it struggles to keep animation of elements consistant and often can’t figure out how elements should be included in the scene. Voices are probably the strongest part, but even then, it can be buggy and won’t change correctly to match the context of what is being said.

  None of this is to say AI is useless. Its very good at creating a “good enough” quick-fix, or to be used to fill unimportant or trivial work. If used to help clean up scripts or fill in backgrounds, it can speed up the process greatly at minimal cost. It’s a tool to be used by someone who knows the field, not to replace them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Half-Life 2 RTX | Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Tribute Video⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In general, I agree, but I think you underestimate the benifits it provides. While ray-tracing doesn’t add much to more static or simple scenes, it can make a huge difference with more complex or dynamic scenes. Half Life 2 is honestly probably the ideal game to demonstrate this due to its heavy reliance on physics. Current lighting and reflection systems, for all their advancements and advantages, struggle to convincingly handling objects moving in the scene and interacting with each other. Add in a flickering torch or similar and things tend to go even further off the rails. This is why in a lot of games, interactive objects end up standing out in an otherwise well-rendered enviroment. Good raytracing fixes this and can go a really long way to creating a unified, variable look to an enviroment. All that is just on the player’s side too, theres even more boons for developers.

  That said, I still don’t plan to be playing many RTX or ray-traced games any time soon. As you said, its still a nightmare performance wise, and I personally start getting motion sick at the framerates it runs at. Once hardware catches up more seriously, I think it will be a really useful tool.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are most mobile games trash?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A couple of major factors:

  Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.

  Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).

  Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft’s generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. See as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there ways to use VR headset for realtime assistance?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it is technically possible - with the Valve Index you can read the camera input like a webcam, and I’m sure theres some way to do it with the Quests (although probably not easily). That said, as others have noted, between the bulkyness of the headset, the lower quality of the cameras, the risk of losing tracking, and the natural shakyness of people’s heads, it likely wouldn’t be an improvement. Try watching VR footage from someone who doesn’t stream/video it regularly and you can get an idea of how hard the footage can be to follow, even before the lower camera quality.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone know of any good cheap/free trivia party games?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It would be anywhere between 2 and 5.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone know of any good cheap/free trivia party games?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Either physical or digital. And I have access to a PC (with a bunch of emulators) or mobile phones.

• Anyone know of any good cheap/free trivia party games?
  Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩ | ⁨15⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨On a lighter note: Why do people still buy fast food?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Its not really about the taste - its about the speed and convenience. If you want good food, you make your own. If you just finished a shift in a particularly back-breaking job, and hate cooking, then its a chance to relax rather than spending another half hour or more cooking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you like/dislike about lemmy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately, while it only takes one user to make these communities, there is rarely enough to maintain activity and esspecially not discussion on them. Even fairly large niches, such as Dota, rarely get more than a post or two a month, and no meaningful discussion despite it being a game that emphasizes theorycrafting so heavily.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you like/dislike about lemmy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It absolutely can, but doesn’t always. For example, Gamer’s Nexus is well respected for their thorough and unbiased research and journalism. It would be extremely difficult for them to do so without ads and merch sales, as any products reviewed must be purchased, testing equipment needs to bought, and experts need to be hired to use said equipment. Until capitalism ceases to exist, most people who make stuff will need to find a way to fund their work, from paint brushes to high-end testing equipment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do you like/dislike about lemmy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Like:

  • Decentralized system that limits abuse

  • Great customizaion

  Dislike:

  • Lack of even remotely niche content (aside from Linux and infosec content)

  • Generally very pessimistic userbase

  • Lacks polish and features in many areas

  • Currently trends towards extremist echo chambers - the fact that .ml (an instance known for banning criticism of violent, racist, authoritarian governments) is one of the biggest instances, is a good example of this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you actually care about your friend's new baby, vacation abroad or similar life events or are you just being nice?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I definately care some, although not enough that I want to sit through a photo slideshow or that. That said, if its just daily photos to a family group chat, or listening to them talk about a particular trip highlight, then I certainly enjoy it.